Peter Foster is the Telegraph's US Editor based in Washington DC. He moved to America in January 2012 after three years based in Beijing, where he covered the rise of China. Before that, he was based in New Delhi as South Asia correspondent. He has reported for The Telegraph for more than a decade, covering two Olympic Games, 9/11 in New York, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, the post-conflict phases in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.

Picking up the pieces, or falling apart?

Almost two years ago, after the Boxing Day tsunami, the readers of The Daily Telegraph gave some Â£6m (51 crore Indian rupees) in donations to help those affected by the disaster.

The aftermath of the tsunami, December 2004

Almost all of that money was passed to a medical charity called Merlin and today I'm off to Sri Lanka to see what they did with all the loot!

It should be interesting. I shall be going to Batticaloa, which is on Sri Lanka's east coast where there is currently a major refugee crisis developing around the town of Vakarai.

For the last four weeks the Tamil Tiger rebels and the Sri Lankan army have been slugging it out with artillery, terrorizing a population of about 40,000 'IDPs' – or internally displaced persons.

The Red Cross is screaming for access, as is the UN who yesterday issued a statement expressing 'grave concern' about the situation developing in northern Batticaloa district around Vakarai.

However the Tigers won't let the people out because they fear – probably legitimately – that it would clear the way for a major Sri Lankan army offensive against their eastern flank.

I spoke to a friend who is working up there for an NGO who says reports from the ground – they can't get in to see for themselves – are desperate, with at least 40 bodies lying in the open and perhaps double that number of seriously wounded casualties unable to get to Batticaloa's main hospital.

Vakarai is one of the places were Merlin has permission to build a new hospital, but no work can go on in the climate of war.

Merlin's new hospital was due to replace the brand new building which was flattened by the tsunami just a week before it was scheduled to be opened in January 2005. That hospital was itself a tangible part of the 'peace dividend.'

I remember going up to Vakarai just after the tsunami to where the Italian Red Cross had set up a mobile camp. The devastation was terrifying. But there was hope that the tsunami and its terrible consequences might provide a golden opportunity to build an enduring peace, as it did in Indonesia.

But two years on, and the war has returned with a vengeance. Here is not the place to apportion blame which, in my opinion, lies with both sides.

It just makes you wonder how many times someone can be knocked down and keep on getting up?